


Who Taught You How to Fall

by sophinisba



Category: Saving Face (2004)
Genre: Canon - Movie, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Character of Color, Community: kink_bingo, Dirty Talk, F/F, Femslash, Mirrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-26
Updated: 2010-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:32:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vivian notices that Wil dislikes hanging out at the dance studio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Taught You How to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to glass-icarus for help, encouragement, and betaing! This fic fills the "mirrors" square on my kink-bingo card.

Vivian was able to appreciate her relationship with Wil a lot better once she let go of the idea that she'd get to see her all the time. Six months on another continent helped give her some perspective on that front.

When she got back to New York she moved in with Wil, and that helped too, but between Vivian's hours dancing and bartending and Wil's unpredictable shifts at the hospital, they could still go for days without seeing each other. (Sometimes Vivian speculated that her dad was using the schedule to punish Wil for causing Vivian to give up her contract in Paris, but Wil said no, that was just life when you were a surgical resident. Vivian's mother confirmed this.)

Since they couldn't count on their schedules lining up, they stopped making plans for dinner or meetings at the park at any particular time. They were happy if they got to spend a night in the same bed, even though sometimes they were too exhausted to do anything more than sleep.

Vivian had stopped dropping in at the hospital because of the situation with her dad, but if Wil had some time off in the afternoon she might come by the studio. And that was good, not only because Wil was adorable and Vivian liked seeing her, and not only because it meant her friends actually believed her when she said she was dating a beautiful surgeon.

It was also nice to be able to take a break and give her girlfriend a kiss because she wanted to. It was nice to know she was working with people who cared about dance but also believed in having a life outside the studio – or even bringing the rest of your life inside the studio once in a while.

There were still days when Vivian wondered if she'd made the right decision. She didn't talk about it with anyone but her mom – her dad would say he told her so and it would hurt Wil too much to hear it, and she wasn't about to tell the people she was dancing with that she'd taken a hit to her career in order to be here with them. But here they were, sharing a dance space with morning ballet lessons for little girls and evening social dance lessons for nervous singles, and the concert on the 18th might not happen, and the grant from the arts foundation hadn't been renewed. And she could have been at the Paris Opera Ballet.

But every time Wil showed up in the doorway, Vivian would think, _Right here. This is where I'm supposed to be._

Too bad Wil didn't seem to feel the same way. She'd shrug her way into the room and tiptoe over to the piano, avoiding looking at anyone or at her own reflection in the mirror. Sometimes Vivian didn't even realize she was there until the rehearsal was over and she found her lurking in the hallway. "I didn't want to interrupt," she'd say.

It was stupid. They were grown women, _busy_ women, who'd already given up a lot to be together. (At least Vivian had, and she did her best to push away the thought that she'd been the only one. They were different – for Wil just telling her mom she was gay was a sacrifice. So was holding hands with her girlfriend on the street.) They didn't need to waste time standing in doorways.

*

Vivian had made a decision, back when she was in high school, to be completely honest whenever possible. She told her parents that she'd never get married and she'd never become a doctor. She told Gene Wong that his poetry was nonsensical (and not, as he believed, edgy) and told Jen Carlyle that she needed to pay more attention when she went down on girls, or this lesbian thing really wasn't going to work out for her.

Vivian was glad she'd lived her life this way. She'd missed out on some friendships but not, she thought, the kind that really mattered.

However, she told Wil a deliberate lie, which was that she'd be in rehearsal until six this Monday.

When Wil showed up at the studio, Vivian was sitting by herself at the piano bench, trying to sound out the tune of a Chinese pop song Wil had been singing in the shower lately. Too bad she'd never really learned how to play.

"Where is everybody?" Wil asked.

"No rehearsal today," Vivian said absently, repeating the last phrase she'd played. There was still one note off.

"Why are we here then?"

Vivian stood up, crossed the big empty room to give Wil a kiss, and brought her over to stand by the mirror that took up one full wall. "Because I wanted to see you," she said.

"You could've seen me at home. This would've been a good day for that, actually."

"Hm," said Vivian. "Because I wanted _you_ to see you."

Vivian turned to look at their reflection in the mirror and Wil looked with her, then looked back to face Vivian, still confused.

"Is it the mirror that bugs you?" Vivian asked. "Is that why you don't like being here?"

Wil shrugged and pursed her lips. "The mirror, yeah, maybe that's part of it. You remember I didn't have a full-length mirror in the apartment until you moved in."

"I remember."

"It's not that big a deal to me though. I think it's more…no offence, but it's more the people."

Vivian raised an eyebrow at their reflection, where Wil still wasn't meeting her gaze. "I might take offence if you've decided you don't like being around me. Though that would explain some things about the first few months of our relationship…"

Wil laughed uncomfortably. "No, it's not you. Or not just you. It's your friends though. I mean, they seem nice enough..."

"My friends love you."

"Okay."

"What?"

"No, I'm sure it's not even personal, like the way they look at me, I shouldn't let that bother me. But they're dancers."

"Um, yeah, _I'm_ a dancer."

"Right!" said Wil, and her face was so animated that Vivian gave up on the mirror for now, turning to look at her directly. Wil flashed her a quick smile before continuing, "You're a dancer and you're gorgeous and passionate and I love you. I love everything about you, so obviously that includes your dancer body and your dancer brain. That's awesome! It's just hard to be around sometimes, for us regular humans. I mean, you guys, you're all so beautiful and in shape, and I'm just skinny and –" she threw a glance toward the mirror and waved her arms at nothing in particular. "And when you move it's…you can just be walking, but it's like you're dancing. You're so _aware_ all the time. Only not like I'm…if _I_ think too much about how I'm moving I'll trip over my own feet. You guys just glide across the room. It's kind of creepy, to tell you the truth."

Vivian took a minute to take this all in. None of it was really unexpected, but she was impressed with such a long speech from someone who was usually reduced to grunts and monosyllables when forced to talk about her feelings. "Okay, so maybe you need some dancing lessons," she said, "to help you fit in better."

Wil grimaced. "I really don't think that's a good idea. I mean, doing a waltz or a foxtrot is one thing –"

"Especially if you've got a good partner to lead you –"

"Right, but _being a dancer_ is different. It's like being a whole other kind of person!"

"It's really not, Wil. Hey, I'm the one who taught you how to fall. That turned out all right, don't you think? How about next I teach you how to walk?"

"I know how to walk already."

"Not like you own the place though. Look, you don't have to glide – that would look kind of stupid, actually. Just…walk. Walk with me, and watch us in the mirror while we do it. Noticing yourself doesn't have to mean noticing something's wrong, okay?"

Vivian kept an arm around Wil's waist and guided them across the room, walking parallel to the mirror and an arm's length away from it. "See if you can copy what I do," she said, "only opposite. You step with your left foot while I step with my right. One, two, three..."

On the count of four, Wil tripped and Vivian had to grab her to keep from falling.

Wil, a New Yorker who had never owned a car, who was used to walking all over the place, including miles of city sidewalks in Vivian's company, tripped on the smooth wooden floor.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I told you though, I suck at this. Can we do something else now?"

"I suppose you'd rather be waltzing in Flushing," said Vivian.

"No. I'd rather just the two of us hang out."

"That's what we're doing."

"Sure, okay. But what about, _really_ just the two of us, without those two." She pointed at the mirror. "Two's company, four's a crowd."

"I don't know," said Vivian, "I kind of like the look of those two. Especially this one here." She reached out and tapped on Wil's reflection in the glass. "I mean _look_ at her."

Wil looked. She wasn't in love with her reflection, but she wasn't trying to hide from it either. "Okay," she said, with an indulgent smile, "you've made your point, I get it."

"When you tripped just now? That was the most adorable thing I've seen all day. Catching you? That was a whole lot sexier than anything I get to do on stage."

"Sure," Wil said with a snort. She turned to the side and started walking in a line, counting out loud, and Vivian fell into step next to her. As Wil relaxed she even started to do mock ballet steps, and then hip-hop moves, and rather than correct her Vivian just laughed and kept on matching her steps. They walked and chatted about their day until people started to arrive for seven o'clock salsa lessons.

On the subway ride back to the apartment she watched their reflection in the window, and once or twice she even caught Wil's gaze there.

Then again, that night when they were undressing, Wil kept glancing over at the closet door, the full-length mirror Vivian had bought less than a week after moving in. But she'd smile and look away whenever she noticed Vivian watching her.

Vivian made a show of carrying a chair over to face the mirror. She sat down and stared straight ahead until Wil asked, "Whatcha lookin' at?"

"Nothing," said Vivian, "just my empty lap with no girlfriend on it."

Wil laughed and sat down across her legs, turned to the side so she could put her arms around Vivian and kiss her. Vivian liked having Wil's weight on top of her, and liked having Wil's mouth on her, so she didn't mind a little bit of stalling, but eventually she shifted Wil around to sit between her legs and face the mirror with her. She looked over Wil's shoulder and sighed.

"God, don't you ever just look at yourself and – look at yourself?"

Wil looked for a while, considering, and finally said, "Not really, no," with her voice flat.

"You should."

Wil stared noncommittally.

"And you should let the rest of us look at you. Even the dancers, who – news flash – are actually humans too!"

"You know what I meant."

"Of course I do. I get that it's intimidating. Hell, I still don't like walking around in hospitals, even though I half grew up in one –"

"_Nobody_ likes being in hospitals."

"Yeah, I guess that's not the best comparison. The point is though, dancers are less interesting humans than you are. I mean, I can be with them whenever I want. Dana and Yuko and Eva and Anthony, everybody in this group, those are my best friends. I love being around them and moving with them and seeing what they can do. But you know who I'd rather look at?"

Wil rolled her eyes a little, but she also couldn't help a shy smile.

"I love your eyes," Vivian said, since she was noticing them. "I like the way you roll them at me when I'm being too dramatic, and the way you squint at me when I come back late from the bar, and I have to turn on the light and it wakes you up."

"You should really just learn your way around the bedroom," Wil said, aiming Vivian's favorite unimpressed look at Vivian's face in the mirror. "You're graceful about everything else."

"I like your mouth," Vivian continued, unperturbed. "I like the way you suck in your noodles even though your mom always bitches you out for it. I like watching you speak Mandarin, even though it makes me jealous."

"Hey, be grateful you didn't have to translate for your parents when you were a kid."

"Yeah, I know, the grass is always greener. I like the way you scrunch up your whole face when there's something you don't like and you know you're gonna have to do it anyway."

Wil watched herself scrunching up her face. "Huh," she said. "You must really be in love with me."

"Maybe a little bit," Vivian said, and kissed her neck. She hesitated, because there was a line between sexy and ridiculous, and she was still finding it with Wil. She ran her hand along the inside of Wil's thigh, gently tugging her legs open, and said, "I like your pussy…"

Wil clamped her legs shut and laughed out loud. "Oh, God, what are we, in a porn movie now?" Missed the line then.

"I'm just saying."

"To look at?" Wil was twisting her neck around to look at her. "Seriously?"

"Okay, so looking's not as good as touching, but I wouldn't mind doing both."

Wil turned back toward the mirror, looking doubtful. Vivian slid her hand up a little higher. Wil's legs were clenched pretty tight, but Vivian wasn't shy about this. "Show me?" she asked softly, and Wil very slowly started to relax.

"You're kind of perverted, you know that?" Wil said affectionately, leaning back against her.

"Mm hm, maybe a little bit."

Wil took a breath and then spread her legs. It wasn't like a porn movie. The light was low in their bedroom and they weren't all that close to the mirror. Mostly Vivian saw her own hand, and under that the dark shadow of Wil's pubic hair. It was beautiful.

"Thank you," Vivian murmured. She started to caress her girlfriend's labia and felt the slick arousal on her hair and skin. In the mirror she watched Wil's eyes go wide with surprise and fascination, watched her toes curl, watched her knees spread just a little wider. "You don't really mind my perversions, do you?" Vivian asked, starting to rub her clit, and Wil shook her head, put her weight on her toes so she could arch of the chair and push into Vivian's hand.

"There's all kinds of things we could get up to, if you're willing to face it." Vivian pressed harder and Wil's clit and watched in the mirror as she let two fingers slip inside her vagina. She lowered her voice, half growling, "Someday I'm gonna fuck you in that dance studio," and was surprised by the violence of Wil's moan and the way her hips jerked in Vivian's hold.

"You've thought about it, haven't you!" Vivian exclaimed, grinning. "You wanna fuck with that wooden floor under your bare ass, and a giant mirror for you to watch the whole thing."

"Nnngh," Wil panted, and after a few more thrusts, "So?"

"So maybe I should tie your wrists to the barre. No, I know your ankles, spread 'em wide apart so you can't try to hide what's mine."

Wil gave a broken cry, and Vivian felt the familiar tremble under her fingers, watched the familiar sight of Wil's beautiful open face through the unfamiliar angle of the mirror. It was the last thing she'd ever expected would send Wil over the edge, but she was getting better at finding that line all the time. Vivian smiled smugly.

"Let's go to bed," Wil said when she had enough breath to talk. She stood up unsteadily and Vivian held her. "You've got – I make fun of you sometimes, but you've got a lot of good ideas. First falling, now this."

"I'll see what else I can come up with."

"Just as long as it's just the two of us," Wil said. She waved her hand, "Or, four or whatever. We can do it with mirror-Wil and mirror-Viv again. You know, if it's really important to you."

Vivian smirked. "You don't want to put on a show though? Maybe just for the salsa dancers, since you don't want to be around my friends."

"Oh, shut up and kiss me," said Wil, and they fell into bed together.


End file.
